Our next episode review will be the final in our #31-40 season of MASKast. Episode #40 is titled "Eyes of the Skull" and features V.E.N.O.M. leader Miles Mayhem using an ancient crystal skull with x-ray vision to see through Matt Trakker's mask. Discovering his true identity on the streets of San Francisco, Mayhem then kidnaps Matt's son Scott Trakker. The ransom for Scott's safe return includes all of M.A.S.K.'s masks, the identities of all agents, and the location of Boulder Hill!Here are the episode stats...

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About Jason GrossJason Gross is an '80s kid trapped in a 40-year old body and has loved M.A.S.K. from the very beginning. He also contributes his retro pop culture knowledge to the Rediscoverthe80s.com website.

Wyatt Bloom is a lifelong M.A.S.K. fan as well as several other '80s properties including Knight Rider, Dukes of Hazzard, Airwolf, and Voltron. He also enjoys creating sound systems and the occasional deejay gig.

Besides the AOM website, Jason and Wyatt are lifelong friends who have also collaborated on a M.A.S.K. screenplay and cohost the MASKast podcast. They were also privileged to particpate in a M.A.S.K. 30th Anniversary panel with voice actor Doug Stone at Retro Con in 2015.

3 comments:

This was a good episode, despite the heavy presence of Scott and T-Bob, and the bad puns. VENOM displays a remarkable level of competence in not only figuring out that Scott is Matt Trakker's son, but in finding him so quickly as well. In fact, it was really too easy for Rax to find Scott so fast in such a big city as San Francisco. Also, as someone who has traveled there, I can state with certainty that the Golden Gate Bridge is never that deserted, at any time. The Crowley guy turned out to be a real jerk, just walking off instead of letting Trakker know about the properties of the skull in the beginning. Guess they needed to fill a half hour somehow. My biggest peeve with the episode was the ending. It was just too convenient that the skull could be destroyed by its own reflection, and not only that, but why Dagger would forget everything that happened made no sense since he never used the skull at all. By all rights, VENOM should still know Trakker is the leader of MASK, but unfortunately this will not be the case, as the rest of season 1 will return to status quo after this episode. A strong episode to be sure, except for the weak ending.

This is a very interesting episode, at least from a fan's point of view. The plot is quite shocking, as the idea of VENOM discovering the true identity of the members of MASK is almost unthinkable in this version of the series. The episode includes some great scenes. The best ones are probably when T-Bob chases Rax after he has kidnapped Scott and when Mayhem calls Matt and tells him that he has discovered that he is the leader of MASK. I especially liked that we never heard Mayhem's entire list of demands in this scene. Instead it switches to T-Bob, which is great. Another good scene is when Switchblade appears over The Golden Gate Bridge towards the end of the episode. However, the episode also contains some big flaws. Firstly the episode, probably more than any of the others, suffers from being too short. I know that these episodes can't last longer than 22 minutes, but perhaps it would have been an idea to divide some of them into two parts. The episode feels like it's over before it has even started, and the scull breaks just when it's starting to get exciting. The episode's biggest flaw is still that the ending is revealed too soon. The moment the professor says that if the scull sees its own reflection and breaks, all knowledge gained with it will be erased from the viewer's memory, everyone understands that that's how the episode is going to end. Wouldn't it have been a better idea if we had seen the scull break and VENOM looking all confused and not remembering anything without knowing why this happened, and then the professor could have explained this for example in a conversation with Matt at the very end of the episode? That way the ending wouldn't have been revealed so early. In this review I have chosen not to pay any attention to the fact that MASK and VENOM , in another version of the series, are supposed to have been one organization once, and therefore know each other's identity. The MASK series comes in two different versions, one in which VENOM knows the identity of the MASK members, and one in which they don't. This is not unique for MASK, and there are shows where the illogicalities caused by different versions are much greater than they are here.